Is design above any assessment?
Writing an article can be tricky. And when you are given full liberty regarding the theme with nothing but “Design” as a guide, things can get out of control quickly. So my little Designer brain started thinking: I can’t write an article like this. I know it will be published in a company’s Medium (the same company I work for) but who reads the Medium? Because the target demographic for the Medium page sure is very different from the one that takes a look at our social media pages (and the Instagram public is other than the Twitter one) and might look a little bit more similar to the people that read newsletters (those still exist by the way).
But let’s forget for a minute the whole audience thing. What am I going to write about? Design is embracing. It’s everywhere. Should I choose the more general approach? Take a stab at some of the design concepts and deconstruct them? What if designers are reading or overall tech-savvy personnel who understand these concepts and would be bored to death?
The Designer’s ego
I should keep it simple but complex. You know, one of those pompous articles that go in-depth about the perfection of The Original Ice Cream Scoop designed by Sherman L. Kelly in 1935 and how perfect something so simple can be. An 18 cm cast of aluminium with a heat-conducting water solution inside that warms in the palm of your hand and then flows to the tip to allow you to scoop the perfect ball of ice cream. Isn’t design beautiful?
Here is the thing about design: it’s a very personal subject. Some people like a particular work, and some don’t.
It is a bit like art! But different. Why? Because Design lives in purpose. Design is communication and has a primary objective: representing and having a single, correct and very thoughtful perspective and single viewpoint. Art is more open in that sense: when an artist creates a painting, music or a movie, it can have in mind a particular message that he wants to transmit, but it is ultimately open to interpretation. Design, mainly UI/UX can’t be available to multiple judgments, or it fails its purpose.
How can a design be better than another?
But how can design be evaluated? Who says that a purple button is worse than a blue one?
The answer might dwell in experience and testing. But first, some quick notions:
UI, or user interface design, focuses on a product’s visual and interactive elements, such as the layout, buttons, and menu options, and how they are arranged on the screen. It involves creating functional and aesthetically pleasing designs, making it easy for users to navigate and interact with a product or service.
UX, or user experience design, is a broader term that encompasses the entire experience of using a product or service, from when a user first encounters it to when they finish using it. It involves conducting research to understand the needs and goals of users and then using that information to design a product or service that is intuitive, easy to use and satisfying to interact with. UX designers often work closely with UI designers to create a cohesive and well-designed final product.
What’s the solution?
Evaluating something subjective can be challenging, as it involves making judgments about things open to interpretation or personal opinion. In general, it is crucial to approach the evaluation process with an open mind and to consider various factors when making your assessment. One of the main things to consider when preparing a design review is to get on multiple perspectives: it is essential to consider various perspectives and the different ways people might interpret or experience the work. This could include asking others for their opinions or seeking expert opinions to help you gain a more well-rounded view of the work.
A design can be considered better than another if it is more effective at achieving its intended goals. This could include being more aesthetically pleasing, user-friendly, functional, or innovative than the other design. Additionally, a design is better if it is more suitable for the specific context or purpose for which it was created or if it is more in line with the needs and preferences of the intended audience.
In general, it’s important to choose a font that is legible and easy to read while also fitting with the overall tone and aesthetic of the design. Let’s grab fonts, for example; the right font can help to create a cohesive look and feel for a design, while the wrong font can make a design look messy and unprofessional. Different fonts can also create other visual effects, so choosing a font that will help convey the design’s intended message is important. You wouldn’t select Comic Sans for a finance-related product.
Let’s talk colours!
- The best colours to use for a platform can depend on the goals of the project and the intended audience: If the product represents a brand, consider using colours that are associated with the brand. For example, if the brand uses a specific shade of blue (like Ubiwhere), you may want to use that colour as a primary colour on your website.
- Different colours can evoke different emotions and associations. For example, red can draw attention and convey a sense of urgency, while blue is often associated with trustworthiness and reliability.
- Consider the purpose of your website and choose colours that align with that purpose. Use colour combinations effectively: Generally, it’s best to use a limited number of colours on your website (two to three is a good rule of thumb). Use these colours in a cohesive way, such as using a primary colour for headings and a secondary colour for accents. Avoid using too many different colours, as this can overwhelm users.
- Keep accessibility in mind: Ensure that the colours you use have sufficient contrast, which is important for visual users. You can use a tool like the WebAIM Color Contrast Checker to ensure that your colour choices meet the recommended contrast ratios. (Don’t you ever dare to use white text on yellow).
Making it work
Design evaluation is a necessary process that helps ensure that a product or service meets the needs and expectations of its intended users. By gathering user feedback and evaluating the design based on specific criteria, designers can identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions about how to iterate on the design. Ultimately, design evaluation aims to create a product or service that is effective, efficient, and enjoyable for users. In conclusion, design evaluation plays a crucial role in the design process and should be an integral part of any design project. So naturally, Ubiwhere is taking steps in this direction to develop a better project. How?
Currently, Ubiwhere is building and testing a new Design roadmap. This roadmap has a thorough and detailed description of every step, personnel involved, exercises to be done, expected results and average duration, with examples and blank templates for most of the procedures.
Why is the Roadmap being created? From day 1 of a project, design should be present in it. Creating the idea and naming it even, we are currently expanding design thinking to every company department to have a more consistent flow.
With that comes needing transparency between product owners, product managers, UI/UX designers and externals (such as communication, marketing, development, admin and random interviewees). Most of the time, some of the time frames designers receive to create a product are very short compared to the design work that needs to be done. Some processes take more time than others; it’s natural. And with a particular job that resorts to the imagination, the transpicuousness of the roadmap allows all the collaborators to sync and negotiate stage times better.
How are the roadmap and this establishing of processes making a design “better” than others?
By creating some checkpoints that each project needs to take into account, there are some commonly faced issues that we want to mitigate from the ground up that we hope to make our design better. How many times are products developed without the user in mind? A product that is finished and then when it is being used, we notice a huge pain for the user that was not taken into account while researching and could have easily been eradicated with some proto-personas and card sorting activities? (I can see some hands in the air from here).
Those aspects make a design significantly better than others and will ultimately define a product’s success. Sure the UI is equally important. Who would drive a Ferrari engine in a Fiat Multipla chassis?
Here at Ubiwhere, the whole design team agrees on a couple of things:
- We always try to keep things tidy. (A place for everything and everything in its place);
- Contact between departments is key. (Have a question regarding x or y functionality? Talk to the product owner directly);
- Have an ego! (On the design team, we hold weekly design review meetings so we can showcase our work and get feedback from our peers since designers can get lonely sometimes)
- Ideation. (After getting roasted by our teammates, we usually go back to the drawing board)
- Test. (This one, in particular, is still getting perfected, but we try to user test with innovative methods, and we can’t stress enough how this step is important. Test, test, test.)
- Redesign. (If need be and time allows it (cough cough Project Managers) after testing, no product is perfect. After evaluating your results, if you think there is a major pain that you can mitigate in your design, go back to the canvas and make that fix!
Embed, retrospect, reflect, and project
Are you satisfied with what you just read? Do you feel comfortable evaluating a design and dictating the faith of a project with what you have learnt? If not, welcome to Design! It’s a pleasure to have you among us.
There are no established guidelines and checkboxes that you can check, no mathematical formulas to calculate, no overcomplicated excel and no magical script that you can run to determine the success of a design, and that is the beauty of it.
That is why design is so human, and we see AI fail miserably at concepting new wireframes.
Because it follows trends like a rookie, takes the prettiness factor above accessibility and usability, and does not consider the final user: Humans.
